Appliance Reviews

I bought this machine using a gift certificate from my last place of employment plus a little of my own dinero, and have been absolutely thrilled with it. It has flawlessly and effortlessly kneaded pasta dough, mixed a double batch of heavy gingerbread cookie dough, grated parmesan cheese to a fine powder, rescued slightly lumpy gravy, whisked together cornbread in seconds, and most recently sliced a variety of vegetables for tossed salad for 25 people (which I was requested to bring to a party--I am not a "salad person," so I was tickled when everyone praised my contribution!). I had never used a food processor for slicing, but it did a beautiful job with bell peppers and cucumbers--artfully thin, but not too fine a cut. As promised, it even did a fine job mincing just a couple of garlic cloves and also a handful of parsley, meaning that I could do a dinner's worth of food-processing in just one machine.

The accompanying video can only be watched by people who take food equipment seriously; other family members had to be asked to leave the room during the viewing, as there was much giggling about the over-earnest instructions. Nevertheless, I picked up some fabulous tips about using the Cuisinart, and recommend you sit (alone, or with a true believer) and watch it beginning to end.

The surface of the machine is very easy to clean, and Cuisinart recommends the dishwasher for the bowl and blades. Do be careful with the latter--Cuisinart should really include the disk holder, as it is dangerous to leave these accessories lying around in a kitchen drawer.

This is the third food processor I have owned, and though I mourned the demise of my trusty Panasonic (rated highly by Consumer Reports ten years ago), with this high-end Cuisinart I have "been to Paree" and have no intention of going back to the farm. If you do any industrial-strength cooking, or if you (like me) are sold on using a food processor as a high-powered, self-contained unit for basic mixing duties, this is a wonderful accomplice in your prandial ventures. Bravo Cuisinart!

I received this as a gift this Christmas to replace a Cuisinart that I have been using for 30 years.

I am very much impressed with it. I have made the Challah bread, corn bread and cinnamon buns from the recipe book that came with it. The machine did an excellent job and the results were wonderful.

I would definitely recommend this Cuisinart food processor

I bought my DLC-2014 about a year ago when replacement parts for my 15-year-old Bosch became too hard to find. I was encouraged by the Cuisinart reputation and the outstanding reviews it received, and wasn't disappointed when it arrived.
The machine is heavy- no more posting a kid by the counter to make sure it doesn't walk off if I have to step away for a few seconds. It's aerodynamically smooth on the outside, so it's a snap to clean. (I was going to say "sexily smooth" but I realized that sounds a little strange when you're talking about a food processor. But then, if you truly love quality kitchen tools, as I do, maybe it wouldn't be going too far.) I don't buy anything I have to wash by hand and everything but the base can be put into the dishwasher. I use it on a daily basis, and often find myself making, for example, 3 batches of bread dough in quick succession rather than pull out and assemble my big mixer. (I feel that the processor does tend to heat bread dough up a little, so I might recommend adjusting the temperature of the water in recipes.)
I was devastated the one time I had problems with it- my 7 year old was mixing cookie dough in it and it just stopped and simply would not start again. (I'll admit I wasn't watching too closely so I don't know why it happened; I suspect she must have put in ingredients in the wrong order). I felt a little better when I looked in the manual and saw that there is a 10-year warranty on the motor, and was overjoyed later when, after I gave it sufficient time to cool off, it worked as if it were new.
My biggest complaint about the processor, and this did not keep me from giving it a "5", is that with normal household use, the cover and pusher assembly have developed some cracks which, so far, have not affected performance. The white plastic piece on the work bowl handle is loose, too, and if it comes off completely it may end up causing me to replace the bowl, as it shields the locking mechanism. A friend has commented that she has been similarly disappointed with her Cuisinart processor. I don't coddle the parts; perhaps they were dropped at some point (I'll blame the kids- they won't read this!) or had some heavy dishes placed on top of them in the sink, or it could have been stress cracks caused by the heat of the dishwasher (though I always place them on the top rack). Whatever the reason, I never expected the Lexan parts to show this much wear so quickly. After looking unsuccessfully for replacement bowls and covers at various online sites, I finally found that I could order them directly from Cuisinart. (Hint, hint, Amazon!) The price for a complete bowl and cover assembly shocked me- about a third of what I paid for the whole processor. Will I buy the parts, at what I feel are too steep prices? Of course. I have to. I won't even wait until the ones I have now become unusable, because that would mean going for -gasp!- a week or more without it, and around here, that would be as unbearable as the time our coffeemaker went- but that's a different review.

I received this food processor for Christmas, and was at first disappointed that it was the "low-end" of the Cuisinart line, but after using it twice since, I am more than pleased with its performance.

First of all, I was very pleased that it came not only with the "S" blade but two other grating/slicing blades, and a spatula. The older packages did not include these and required additional purchases.

Second, when it comes to preparing things that need slicing and chopping, the Cuisinart does a great job. Having made an apple pie at thanksgiving by manually chopping apples, the Cuisinart makes otherwise labor-intensive cooking MUCH easier.

For the price, this product is a great value and does 90% of the things most of us cooking at home need to do. Cuisinart has been around a long time, and many recipes in today's cookbooks actually recommend you have one in your kitchen, so this unit is a great value for the price and will make cooking easier and more enjoyable.

For some reason, I'd never used a food processor before. Very easy to use and very easy to clean up. It comes w/ the standard chopper, a shredder, and a slicer. It does not include the dough thing.

A real time saver with excellent results for chopping, mincing, pureeing, and slicing. I'm impressed with the way it handles small amounts relatively well.

Remember: If you haven't owned one of these, the blades are VERY sharp. If you have children, you MUST keep these even further away than knives. Like knives, I hand clean the blades immediately after use and place them directly in the storage location.

I bought this food processor almost on a whim. I knew I wanted one, and I felt sure I could find some use for it, but I wasn't sure exactly why I wanted it or what I'd use it for. Since I purchased it a year ago, I have found myself using it far more often than I thought I would, and for tasks I always thought I could do just fine by hand. I don't eat meat much, so I cook with vegetables frequently -- this food processor makes short work of chopping almost anything, either with the S-blade or with the included grating and slicing discs. I use it at least once a week, and I definitely feel it's worth the money I spent.

One bit of advice: When they say not to use other spatulas or utensils to scrape the work bowl, they mean it, at least when the S-blade is in place. I unthinkingly used one of my other spatulas to scrape the bowl one night and the blade cut it to ribbons.

Although this food processor is great when it works, many of the parts are subject to frequent breaking and are very costly to replace. I have replaced the stem three times in ten years or so. I have replaced the bowl once, and one of the blades has broken twice. The motor has held up fine despite all the parts breaking along the way. I have given up paying premium prices to replace parts. I am looking for an alternative which will offer me as large a bowl as this.

Having purchased it when introduced, I have owned this model of Cuisinart for OVER 25 YEARS! It has performed flawlessly, and, contrary to one other reviewer's report, nothing has ever broken, even though it has been subjected to very difficult tasks, such as double batches of yeast dough. Perhaps it is a matter of correct care for the parts.
Any appliance that still performs like new after 25 years of serious use seems extraordinary to me.
Regardless, Cuisinart is still the best there is in food processors, I doubt anyone could be any happier with anything else.

I've used several Cuisinart food processors over the years and I must say that they have all been wonderful tools. They are very sturdy and powerful and have never failed me. Any cook's kitchen must have at least one large food processor, preferably with several work bowls. The 14 cup is a good size if you can't afford the larger 20 cup model.

I was lucky enough to find this processor at my local wholesale store as a floor model for dirt cheap. However, in order to get this at such a great price, I was not able to get the disc attachments or any attachments other than the standard blade. I also didn't get the instruction book.
Without the instruction book it took me a while to figure out how to get this rascal open, but once I did I found that this puppy works wonders! I bought this processor to replace a Black & Decker model that I was not exactly happy with (I've reviewed that one as well if you're curious). My husband and I have been doing Atkins, and I had wanted to make this recipe of "mashed potatoes" using cream cheese and cauliflower.
Making this recipe with the help of this food processor was an absolute breeze. It took no time at all to get everything perfectly blended, and it seemed like it was practically effortless for this machine to accomplish its task- something that could NOT be said for the Black & Decker.
This is a very sturdy machine; I see now why Cuisinart is almost synonymous with food processors. It's a great plus that this machine is dishwasher safe, along with all the attachments.
Now I'm hoping to find good deals on obtaining some attachments for my processor. Although I cannot attest to how the extra attachments work, I can say that for finely chopping and grinding food this model is unparallelled in its capabilities. This is a great value at any price; any household that does any amount of cooking at all would be greatly enriched having this processor in its kitchen.

We chose this model because we don't want to move really heavy appliances around on the countertop, but the mini-choppers are too small for our recipes. The 2007 weighs about 13 pounds and uses the same wattage motor and most of the same disks as the 11-cup model in this line, although it lacks the extra slow-speed control button for dough processing, and it uses the old-style plastic dough blade. (In this size, it's probably a pie-crust dough maker, not a bread dough maker, anyway.) It's the biggest motor we found on a food processor this size.

Good stuff:

Easy wipe-clean base--no crevices to catch food. Hurray!

Stable and relatively quiet during use.

Easy top-rack dishwasher clean-up (power-saver no-heat drying)

Easy to add small (or liquid) ingredients during processing. Small inner pusher piece is removable, giving access to a small feed tube. There's also a drip hole for liquids in the bottom of the small pusher piece.

Not so good stuff:

Very fiddly mechanism for locking down the workbowl before processing.

The large outer pusher piece, that goes into the main feed tube, has a metal rod that pushes down another rod on the lid, that pushes down another rod on the bowl, that finally pushes a control on the base.

If you have to remove the large pusher to add more big stuff to the bowl, the mechanism stops. Probably just as well, since a child's hand could easily fit through the large main feed tube.

I do wonder how sturdy the locking mechanism will be in the long run, but so far, so good.

With a seven cup capacity, this device is ideal for small settings and dinner parties but not for commercial use. Two speed settings - pulse and on - provide control over the size of the processed food. Variable sized feed tubes allow for introduction of larger items. It also comes with a ten year warranty on the motor. What else do you need from a food processor?

I must confess that the machine works well, and as advertised. It handles dough really well, but we have only used the recipies from the Cuisinart book.

The only problem I had was with the "unbreakable" Lexan bowl - it cracked!! The crack occured right at the seat of the safety mechanism. While the function of the safety mechanism was still intact, I did worry that the crack would spread, and then render the whole machine unusable.

Fortunately, the store from which I bought it (The Bay, Canada), gave me a full, no-hassle refund. This was a full 7 months after I bought it. I will get another one, and watch very carefully for a repeat ot the cracking.

I got this on my birthday from my bf, and it's such a great and useful gift! With this beautiful brushed chrome, and easy to clean up (toss parts in dishwasher)I have made so far:
Artisan bread, and i will never buy bread form a plastic bag again, pizza sauces, pizza dough( i dont think i ever want to order another pizza again, this one was that good) shredded veggires cheeses, meats, bread crumbs, salsas, and guacamole. I even make cake batter in it that is smooth and silky.

This is an amazing product. It saves money and a lot of time. No need to chop or buy prepared foods again.

If you're looking for that perfect gift for someone special - LOOK NO FURTHER - you have found it! I have been using this Cuisinart model for nearly a year now almost daily. It has saved me both time and money. I no longer buy the more expensive ready prep items at the grocery store like shredded cheese or ready cut veggies. I can do the same thing in mere seconds at a fraction of the cost. I have even sliced tomatoes in this unit. For those like me who are short on storage space, this is great - all accessories fit within the unit. And yes, it makes food prep more enjoyable - if you have to do the job you may as well have fun with it! Oh, did I mention its dishwasher safe?

I had this Cuisinart DLC Miniprep first, and was not happy with it. I wanted a small food processor primarily to chop up an onion and some garlic cloves, and with the Cuisinart, I pretty much ended up doing almost all of the chopping before I put the food in the processor, otherwise large sections wouldn't get cut.

After reading the reviews here about how the Kitchenaid has the reverse sprial action which pulls down the food, I thought I'd try that one, and it's true!! The Kitchenaid KFC3100 is a superior product! Now I can just cut the onion into quarters and throw in whole garlic cloves and it cuts them all up perfectly. If your not sure which of the two products to buy, get the Kitchenaid KFC3100!

A friend gave me a mini-prep plus as a housewarming gift. I never thought I'd use it, but I find myself reaching for it again and again -- to chop a handful of nuts, to whip up a dressing, to chop herbs. There's almost nothing to wash, it takes no space on the counter, it's ready in a moment. I'm about to buy one as a housewarming gift for another friend!

I have the Mini-Prep and I have the big guy version, but I use the MP 10x as much. It does everything! Want chopped garlic? peel a couple heads, add 2-3T of olive oil and about a 1/4-1/2tsp. of salt. It keeps in a jar in the fridge and tastes a heck of a lot better than the store kind! Fresh herbs, nuts, peppers without burning hands...it's great! When I'm done, I just rinse it out. This is my favorite appliance after my blender, and if this made smoothies and margaritas, it would be my favorite!

I am an accomplished hobby chef. I do not want every new thang that comes onto the market, because I have a knack of not being able to find ultimate single-function gadgets in my kitchen in the moment I need them. I want only a few tools, but I want them to be efficient: function and space/footprint. I have had a DLC-7 (full size) Cuisinart for over 15 years and I can't imagine cooking without it. I have all of the blades and accessories and I use it EVERY day. So when I saw this cute little DLC-2 available through Amazon at a *very* reasonable price, I imagined using it as a Mini-Me in tandem with my DLC-7. When it arrived, I started a recipe that I could prep the bulk in my large Cuisinart and use the DLC-2 for chopping the chocolate and grinding the nuts (which this little machine claims it can do.) With the metal blade I ran the chocolate through on "chop" and all it did was smear the workbowl. I cut the chocolate up into 1/2 inch pieces and ran it again, and I got nothing but a mess. I cleaned out the bowl and tried chopping the nuts with it. Again, no real cutting, just whizzing the nuts around and bruising them. I wound up chopping the nuts and chocolate with a chefs knife in a fraction of the time. This DLC-2 is not worth the space it takes up in my kitchen. I'll pay as much to return it to Amazon as I did in the purchase price, but at least it isn't here gathering dust anymore. I wouldn't GIVE this away because it is so useless. I've been a dyed-in-the-wool Cuisinart fan for years, and I have many products in their line. All of my other Cuisinart products are top notch. This DLC-2 is simply not of Cuisinart standard quality. They really should discontinue it. It's horrible.

Nice product that worked as adverstiser for several uses but eventually burned out and was in the garbage within four months. I only used this processor for small jobs that should have been "easy".

Add this reviewer to list of reviewers who feel Cuisinart items seem prone to breakage after the warranty period has inspired.

My full size processor is getting old too, so I think I'll just bite the buller and a nice full size KitchenAid processor and be done with it. I will avoid Cuisinart processors in the future.

If you desire, for yourself or for others, a machine that will give you enhanced speed and functionality in the fledgling or occasional kitchen, or if you want something around to make quick work of many small things you find yourself wanting in a modified state, you should consider this machine. The materials are of Cuisinart quality (I used to sell them), and likely fully replaceable as the others. ....

Though this product will not replace a full-size and multi-attachment Cuisinart or other food processor, it's a dream for the single person. Small portions of just about anything are handled with ease. I use mine as a smaller blender for shakes, a mixer for batters and sauces; it's one-stop puree. Having this item on the counter facilitates the preparation of a great many foods I'd ordinarily postpone for a day with more energy.

PROS: *Small: not much counter space, and you're likelier to keep it out all the time for a quick hand. *Dual-function blade and pulse-bar: controlled cutting/mashing and varied tasks. *Power: blends butter and cream cheese and flour for pastry crust. *Chops well if you operate it properly. *Far more useful than I thought it would be.

CONS: *It does not dispense with my need for every other kitchen appliance. *I'd like a shredder/grater attachment and alternative cover for working with smaller amounts of food than appropriate for the larger units-if this one were slightly (even) more adaptable, it would play as significant a role in the kitchen of the occasional or individual cook. (*I refuse to list noise outside of parentheses, as it is a machine. Valid concern for the baby food set, but this product is for all the college kids and bachelors on your list.)

I just bought three cuisinart dlc-5 food processors: first one for myself and then later two as gifts. I wanted more flexibility in the range of foods I could process; and as a result click on the Amazon accessory link for a 3mm slicing disc. This disk did not fit my food process.

I returned it, but Amazon was asking me to pay the return freight, as it was "my fault". I disagreed, and am awaiting the final outcome.

Not withstanding the outcome, I looked closer at the other links in order to buy more disks, and I see some of the other accessory links are not much better. April 2004

I gave my 7 cup Cuisinart that I had for over 10 years to my daughter and just bought a new one. The name itself is an excellent quality and speaks for itself. I am anxious to purchase this discs to add to my others. I highly recommed this because of the good quality made and the many uses you can get at it.